A new "Tale From the Trenches".

Those who know me, know that I am a 25+ year veteran of TV as a sound recordist but those who know me REALLY well know that I've always been on the career path (however slowly and methodically) towards being a Producer. As I move closer to that goal in recent months I am reminded of a cautionary tale from my early days when I actually did get to be a Producer for a short time.

 In the early 90s I started a video production business and got the dream gig of producing the Tourism video for the City of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. I had hit a home run my first time at bat! (or so I thought) They had a stated budget of $10,000 and wanted a 5 minute overview of the city that they could send out and have for trade shows and fairs.

The payment terms were:  25% on signing, 25% on finished script, 25% on completion of principal photography and 25% COD on delivery of finished product. (remember those terms, they'll be important later)

 My God! $10,000 was the wealth of Croesus back in those days! and $2500 immediately in my pocket?  How could I ever lose?

They had about 15 tapes of footage they had already shot.  I was to review that and add what was needed, replace outdated shots and create the video. It was to be a summer-themed video but Council sat on their thumbs with the money until August!! So now I only had a couple of weeks to preproduce and shoot this epic.

 During preproduction meetings it became painfully obvious that they had no concept of what they really wanted so it became an exercise in dragging a concept out of them. Once a concept and some ground rules were finally settled I collected my second $2500 check and was well on my way!

I rented a camera and shot what I had to shoot over the last long weekend in the summer.

I shot over the long weekend for 2 reasons:
 -1- since the Council had sat on the money so long (and Fredericton basically rolls up it's sidewalks come September) it was literally the only time I had left to shoot anything vaguely Summer
-2- I was able to rent a Betacam package from the rental house for one day and keep it for 4 days (& I shot every minute I could over those 4 days too! Days, nights, sunrises, sunsets, moonrises, moon sets, whenever. You can sleep when you're dead was my motto that weekend.)

I collected my third check.

Now on to editing. I lucked out and found a cuts-only LINEAR offline suite (a guy who usually does weddings) that could edit window dubs on SVHS for $25 per hour (remember, this was the early 90's but even then this was an insane deal!) which was a blessing as I had to basically create the show in the editing suite. That editor taught me one lesson that remains with me to this day: "Come into the editing suite with a PLAN."

After a couple of drafts I thought I had a really tight show (the editor agreed) and showed it to the guy from the city for approval. He was thrilled with it but then coyly said the fateful words "Now let's schedule a focus group." FOCUS GROUP?!?! Oh no he didn't... Oh yes, he did. and off we merrily went to a room full of the crankiest people he could find. We showed it to them and they picked it apart! Their main comment appeared to be, "There's too much of this, too much of that. Take this or that out! "Even items we had both strongly and jointly agreed should be included in the video were commented on & if they even hinted at an objection he noted it and I had to change/remove it. CYA must have been tattooed on his butt. This guy was incapable of making a final decision without his @$$ covered six ways to Sunday! A true bureaucrat! Anything they said, he took as Gospel. In the end I was handed 10 pages of notes for a 5-minute piece! Mostly things to remove without any suggestion of what to replace it with. You would have thought I'd have been forced to commit Seppuku for having foisted such a monstrosity on the world!   In the end I think only about 10 shots stayed out of my 5-minutes of very fast paced editing. 

Head down in shame I returned to the edit suite to gut my brainchild. (Editor's only comment was a world-weary, "Didn't like it, huh?") When I had made all the requested cuts (and frankly, -I- didn't much like it at all when I was done) I brought it back to my client who immediately said (are you with me here?) "I LOVE it! Its PERFECT!  Let's take it to ANOTHER focus group."

 Oh God...

This time the focus group wasn't random folks but a group of industry STAKEHOLDERS! Like the head of Downtown Development Corporation who was MOST vocal in his demand that more shots of the Downtown Businesses be used... and the owner of the largest Convention facility who stated that the Downtown wasn't that important and the focus should be on his convention facility, not to forget the Shopping Mall manager who insisted that tons of shopping shots were just what this video needed. You get the idea, in essence, all these people wanted a commercial for their own particular needs and everyone else's wishes were secondary. This second group had almost the exact opposite reaction to the visuals as the first with comments like "Why isn't such and such shown... Why wasn't this included...?" Of course it WAS shown and included, in the first version.

Back into the suite I went for a third cut. Many of these cuts involved ADDING shots we had REMOVED in the last edit... (I know, my head is spinning too... It gets better)  This time the client insists that we also include 5 on-camera testimonials from prominent citizens. (WHAT??) On-camera testimonials that we had not shot nor even planned for. A sidebar here: we had both agreed from the outset that there would be NO narration and DEFINITELY no on-camera testimonials. It would just cost too much and have to be done in both English and French as New Brunswick is Officially Bilingual. In fact, in the pre planning I had suggested testimonials and it was he that nixed them in the first place. But I digress... all it took was ONE person in the second focus group to even mention testimonials and my guy was all over it!

It was at this point where I drew the line and called the entire works to a screeching halt. I told him that shooting testimonials was gonna cost him extra. He seemed quite shocked that I would even suggest more money since I had agreed to a flat fee at the beginning.   I took great pains (through barely noticeable clenched teeth) to inform him that the conditions of the contract had materially changed and without extra money he wasn't going to get his precious testimonials (nor the rest of his video). After much grumbling he agreed to such a small budget that it required me to call in many major favours to get it shot.  I shot 5 locations in one day, English and French.  I got friends to act for me and if you ever see it you'll see a future Provincial Cabinet Minister delivering one of the testimonials (he's the kayaker, and he's freezing because it's October).

Back into the edit suite I go to create the fourth, full version (and probably eighth when you count the versions I cut before I even showed it to him),  remember, these aren't 'tweaks', these are full re-guts of the show, and to add in the testimonials he asked for.

 Finally, it was ready for online but not before he hinted that he would really rather Focus group it one more time (just to be sure). I flatly refused with the lie that the Online Edit suite had been booked and we could only have it the next day or never. He insisted on coming into the online though and still tried to make changes while we were doing it. He caused so much grief that the editor asked me if I could get him to leave.

Finally comes the launch party in November.  I arrive on the day with the finished product and ask for my final payment.  The client says to invoice for the final amount and I'll get paid in 30 days.  I anticipated this and hand him a copy of our signed contract which clearly shows the payment terms (remember them?) of 25% on signing, 25% on finished script, 25% on completion of principal photography and 25% COD on delivery of finished product.  (They've paid the other 3 payments) He looks at the contract and complains that he doesn't have a check right there in his hand.  I hold the DVD just out of his reach and, looking at the room full of people, I say that in that case he doesn't have a video to show all these nice people in their swanky suits.  He calls someone in Accounting at City Hall and, miracle of miracles, a check materializes within 20 minutes and I hand over the video.

A princely $10,000 budget and once all was said and done:  after paying shooters, gear rental & talent, hours and hours (and hours) in the offline suite (thank you Larry for only charging me $25 per hour) meetings, focus groups and an online edit my Net was $165!!!

 I took my wife out to a nice supper and blew it all.

 To look on the bright side of things, I could have saved up $10,000 and gone to film school and not learned half of what I learned about dealing with clients as I did doing that video.

 Moral of the story? NEVER NEVER NEVER agree to do something sight-unseen for a flat fee and, if you do, spell out in the contract EXACTLY what's included in that flat fee and spell out what extras cost UP FRONT.

 Man, did I learn my lesson the hard way. At least I didn't lose money out-of-pocket but that $165 translated into about 5 cents an hour for my time!